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My adrenaline was pumping for quite awhile. There was no food or anything in my tent so I knew he had no reason to come after me. I decided it was better to be still and hope he'd leave me alone and try for the food in the tree than to confront him and try and scare him off.

I lived in the philippines for a year when I was 20, so I did what any of us would do: I bought a goddam monkey. The lady I bought it from had eaten it's mother and told me to wait a few weeks before I ate mine, "or else is just bone".

Anyhoo, we named her Clarence. She liked rum and would sit in my lap and try to pick freckles out of my chest hair as if they were ticks and get mad when she couldn't catch/eat them. Our neighbor poisoned her so we built a funeral pyre downwind of their house, set it ablaze, and filled their house with monkey smoke.

I saw a huge deer on the side of the road. She had been hit by a car and most of her wounds seemed internal. I went up to her and she tried to get away, but her two front legs were broken and she couldn't move. So I just petted her and talked to her while her breathing got more shallow and she started having some strong muscle spasms. Eventually, she stopped breathing and she laid her headonto my arm. For some reason just thinking about it gives me the chills. Probably because I had never watched anything die before.

You have no idea how dangerous that was. I hunted when I was younger and most of my friends growing up did too. I can't tell you how many times every year you hear of someone getting hurt because they shoot a deer and walk up to it thinking its dead only to have it go apeshit and start attacking you.

I went to an aquarium and a bird followed me around until I left. I wanted to pet it because it kept rubbing me. And not like a little bird. It was some big pink bird with a spoon nose. I'll see if I can find a picture. Edit: Here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseate_Spoonbill

I was in Costa Rica, working in a former banana plantation when a Tico worker in front of me called out that he found a terciopelo. That's a fer-de-lance, for those that may know it as that. Bothrops asper.Here's a picture of what their bite can do to a person (NSFL). That's after a two-week treatment with antibiotics, but no antivenom.

So the guys yells that he found one. I cut down a banana tree to get to him, but as I lift the trunk, there's my own viper right under the tree. I had my machete out so I cut it to pieces.

I want to say I cut it up like a badass (not that you should ever, ever try to kill a snake, stepping backwards is a much better way to avoid a strike), but it was more like I hacked at it like a chimpanzee while trying not to shit my pants. I felt bad for killing the guy, but when the nearest hospital is four hours away by dirt road, I don't take chances.

This is probably the worst way to handle a snake encounter, by the way. If you can, simply back away from the snake and leave it alone. I did what I did on a flash-judgement and still feel pretty bad about it, these snakes aren't trying to hurt you!

I had a similar experience with a deer once. When I was three, my parents took me up to Shenandoah National park for our annual trip. I saw a Doe come out of the woods, and while my folks weren't looking I walked over to her. I said "Hi" and waved. She cocked her head to the side, then wagged her ear and tail. I thought she was waving at me, so I walked right in front of her and reached out to touch her. By this point my folks saw, and when my mom came over to pick me up, the doe just stood there. While me and my mom were walking away, I looked back and waved, and the doe wagged her ear again.

I was really excited after that, but when we left the park, I was overjoyed. While driving down the road, we stopped at an overlook to admire the view. I looked over into the woods, and I saw a doe, a buck, and a fawn looking at me. The doe cocked her head, wagged her ear. And then they all ran off.

I know that she was the same doe, and still look for her every time we come up. Of course, I don't expect to find her anymore. 13 years is a long time.

No, the_john_deere. It's been written down in the book of life. You will find this doe again. You will find her and you will begin a torrid love affair. At the end of a passion-filled week of sex and eating bark, she will nibble on your ear and whisper, "ppllbbbrrttfff" or whatever sound deer make and she will go back to her buck and fawn. You will be heart broken, the_john_deere. You thought this would end with marriage, huh? Would have been easy for her to take your last name. But it's only more heartache. Mayhaps it's for the best that you don't find her again.

Lived in the Serengeti as a kid, because my dad was a wildlife researcher. We'd go out on camping trips for a few days at a time while he surveyed bird species in various area of the park.

We slept in the car, but would set up a large tent with a flap on the front that defined a porch, to cook in and store stuff. One evening, we were all kind of cranky. My parents were trying to light our kerosene camp stove in the tent (this was the 70s; we didn't have this newfangled "safety" all you kids talk about), and I eventually grabbed a flashlight, said I was going to guard the porch, and got out of their way.

Once outside, I panned the flashlight around and spotted, siting beside our camp washstand, about ten or so feet away, a curious lioness, who had been attracted by the commotion going on in the tent.

I ran inside. My parents started yelling at me, until I got out "There's a LION outside!" at which point they realized that dinner wasn't happening that night.

We carefully walked to the car, me riding on Dad's shoulders and Mom holding a large insect net above her head so that we looked bigger, and spent the night in the car. We drove around a little bit, and found that an entire pride had decided to camp out in the rock formations behind us that night.

Some friends of ours were lion researchers and once spent the night in an upside-down Land Rover they'd managed to roll while following a pride in the dark. The lions thought that was the most awesome thing ever and spent the night on and around the car.

My other major story is the night our house was invaded by army ants, but alas, it's not especially exciting. We just packed up and spent a few days at a neighboring researcher's family's house, until the ants left. The old Africa hands in the area passed on the tip that kerosene messed up the army ants' chemical signaling, so Dad kept an eye out near the house and when he spotted ants--they follow a sort of migratory path, visiting the same sites every few months, I think--he'd squirt kerosene around the perimeter of the house and they'd leave it alone.

This doesn't really count as a "wild" animal, but it was pretty cool anyway. When my wife and I first started dating we went to the Melbourne zoo together for a bit of fun. It was a weekday so there weren't too many people about which was great for us as we could watch the animals in peace. Anyway, the gorilla exhibit there has these big glass windows in this little covered area which the gorillas can come right up to. So we're checking the gorillas out (they were about 6-7 meters away) and one of the smaller ones notices us. He comes right up to my wife and starts sort of getsturing to her and ends up sitting down by the glass with my wife directly on the other side with their heads and hands touching on either side, just playing and sort of communicating. We were there for almost an hour while she bonded with the animal and whenever other people would come past he would retreat and then come back to the same spot when they were gone and continue the love in. One of the coolest things I've seen. If she can bond with a gorilla, she's a keeper.
TL;DR: Wife bonded with gorilla at the Zoo.
Edit: TL;DR

I live in a city in Australia. In high school they make us go camp in the bush for a week. One night my whole tent woke up and a wombat was in someone's sleeping bag!! And on the same trip we ran into a kangaroo. A girl from my year tried to feed it but the camp leader was yelling at everyone to back away, because they can be very dangerous.

This may sound like a stereotype Aussie, but it's the only time I've seen a wombat or kangaroo that wasn't in a zoo.

Edit: also a possum has been living in my boyfriends roof for months. You can hear it moving around at 3am

We tranqed a hyena and I got to squeeze the anal gland to collect the scented paste substance they secrete for territorial/recognition purposes. I have pictures. When we were done, we put a radio collar on the hyena and got to name it for the log book and tracking registry. Funny to think about, but right now, somewhere in Kenya, there is a hyena running around with my Fiancée's name and a profound feeling of anal violation.

That and feeding a wild giraffe. Giraffes are like friendly giant dogs in my limited experience.

I had a late night standoff with a mountain lion when I was trying to put my fat camping partner's snicker bar in the bear bag. The cougar paced back and forth just watching me. I was too scared to function, so thankfully the cat lost interest in me. As a skinny 16 year old Boy Scout I was thankful the cat decided to not make a meal out of me. The experience made me realize how helpless we are in the wild and how impressive nature is

Wow, every time I'm backpacking in mountain lion territory, I imagine a scenario where I'm being stalked by a mountain lion. Thankfully I've never seen one, but I know if it really wants too, it will bite and snap my neck before I even knew it was there. Glad you were okay! Always travel with someone in the outdoors, especially at night.

A hawk was on the side of road. It took off and flew into my husband and I while we were riding his motorcycle. That big ass wing grazed my leg, then flew in front and around the bike...and kept going. We were both amazed and laughed with disbelief when we finally came to a 4 way stop. Hawks are quite large...

I was driving through the desert some years ago. I don't remember if the bird (hawk? vulture?) was already in the road, or swooped down in front of the car, but I do remember that he took off and barely avoided the car. The wingspan was at least as wide as the windshield.

I was camping with my husband (boyfriend at the time) and woke up super early. I crawled out of the tent and froze, there was a mountain lion about 100 yards to my right on the hill overlooking the valley below. We both sat quietly and watched the sun come up, then she silently walked away. It was incredible.
Edit: word

More scary than interesting, I'm a city dweller. On my way to school a pit bull crossed my path and started growling at me. I maintained eye contact, yelled stay continuously as I backed slowly away. I made my 13 year old self as large as I possibly could, and eventually when I was far enough away he turned around and ran. I'm actually a fan of pit bulls, but their lock jaw ability is scary..... My cutest experience was finding a freshly hatched duckling while camping. The nest was deserted, he was all alone. I waited about 12 hours, and when no or came back for her I packed up my gear. Took her with me and kept her as a pet. She imprinted on me thinking I was her momma. I named her Daisy McQuack

A fucking wolf. A big fucking wolf at that. I was mountain biking, and I come around a turn, and boom...there it is. Just sitting calmly in the middle of trail about 30 feet away. I stopped very quickly...about as fast as you would if you saw a wolf in your path. We just locked eyes, and I couldn't really just turn around and go back, well not easily anyways. I just inched forward slowly, and that fucker just say there gazing into my soul. Thank god he ran off when I got about 15 feet closer. I picked the right day to not smell like beef I suppose.

Where I am from, Deer Hunting is pretty much the name for that cold season that involves thanksgiving, halloween, and christmas. So, naturally, I partake of hunting to make my dad happy so he doesn't have to go out alone. The first year I went, I happened to take a small break going out to my Deer Hunting Blinds by sitting on a fallen tree in the swamp. After about five minutes, a squirrel comes and sits down right next to me, just shoving food and shit into his mouth like we were coworkers on lunch break. I sort of acknowledged him, and funny enough he did the same thing (kind of like that, "sup, mate" look on his face. That's my nice animal encounter. The next one is the bad one.

This was only this last year, so it's rather recent. Once again, I went out hunting with my dad, like usual. Now, I had set my deer blinds up a week early so I wouldn't have to do it during the snowfall. Little did I know, a fat fucking porcupine decided to use my blinds as his personal house. When I found out, I happened to hear some soft rustling on the tree right next to me. Thankfully, that fat bastard got scared and waddle-climbed his carcass up the closest tree to get away from me (I could almost hear him saying, "Fuck off, m8. I'll fuck ya mum, ya cunt" all the way up that tree). He had the last laugh on me by claiming my five dollar, cup-holder lawn-chair...

...by fucking shitting on it like it was his personal toilet. Fuck you, you prickly prick.

TL:DR: Had a lunch break style sit-down with a squirrel bro, and got my shit ruined by a fatass, pompous Porcupine. Also, I guess angry animals sound a lot like pissed off Australians to me, if they could talk.

I went on a trip to New Mexico with my family to stay in a cabin for a bit. Really relaxing times, but the third morning I woke up early for some cereal (fuck yeah lucky charms) and out the window I saw a doe walking slowly by herself. I was so excited I ran to get dressed and when I finally got outside to the back, there we 4 doe and a buck just standing, staring at me. I moved slowly with their eyes fixed on me, and made It to the buck, who watched me and I could feel his eyes searching mine for intent. When I got close enough I put out my hand and inched slowly closer to him. It was so quiet, so serene out in the wilderness. His fur was warm, the longer I touched him the more I noticed he was missing small patches of fur around his nose and body. These few moments felt like an eternity, it was wonderful to feel another life like his.

Sadly another family decided to go for a walk and when the came up to our back fence and started shouting "OMG A DEER HURR DURR LET'S TAKE A PICTURES!" The flashes scared the doe who I hadn't noticed had gathered around me, and the buck followed suite. But as he ran up the hill he turned around and or eyes locked one final time, to signify our friendship I like to think, before he turned and ran to join the wilderness once more.

I was camping and woke up around 6am. A moose came out of the woods, walked up a little hill, ate some weeds, jumped across the brook and galloped away. She was massive, at least 8 feet tall and based on the fact that from 20 feet away, the impact of her landing from the jump shook my tent, at least weighed half a ton. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life :)

We have coyotes around here in cow country, NY. Many years ago, while waiting for the bus for school, there's this rustling from the tree line by the driveway where I was standing. Out comes this coyote, just takes a few more steps, and lays down in this small clearing we have. Just chills. Every so often, it looked over at me, then back to watching the world. Had to be there at least a good ten minutes. After that, it stood up, looked both ways before crossing the road, just before my bus came.

I had a really messy jew fro when this happened. I was walking my dog and as she stopped to piss a bird landed on my head. It mistook my hair for a nest. I didn't see it coming so I started freaking out and I felt something push off my head and then I saw it fly off.

Every day, I am either waiting for cattle or kangaroos to get off the road I am driving on. Cattle are okay, they generally just move off. Kangaroos are suicidal.

If you startle a mob of kangaroos, they tend to bugger off pretty quickly, but there is always one or two that jump beside the ute for a while, before trying to cut you off. They jump straight out in front every time. This one time, I think one of the roos forgot what he was running from, stops right in front of me, and doesn't move. I didn't hit him, but he stayed in front of the ute for about 2 minutes, ignoring the horn. I finally get out of the ute, approach him (he's only a young eastern grey, so maybe just over a meter tall) and he finally remembers what he was running from. Does a 180, trips over himself a couple of times, then makes a dash for the tree line.

Not so weird, I know, but same car, 2km down the same track, 6 months later, and there is a wombat on the road. This isn't a very wide road, more like a dirt track. I can't drive around him, and again, he isn't moving, and won't budge for me. I get out of the car, walk up and nudge him with my steel caps, and he doesn't budge. I walk back to the car, get my camera, go back to the wombat, line up a shot, and just as I'm pressing the shutter, the little turd takes off. I ended up with a brown blurry photo.

Either animals are mesmirised by my shitbox trayback ute, or they are just stupid in that part of the country.

Another one. Friend and I are driving along a river On a two lane road. See something giant in the other lane. Get closer while slowing down. See its a fucking great horned owl. Damn near 2-3 feet tall. Me and the owl make eye contact and stare into each others souls contemplating the universe, a second later a car comes flying by and tears that owl a new asshole. I still feel responsible.

One day when I was a kid, we were camping in Ontario and a guy from another camp site went to see us and told us to follow him because there was a raccoon where he was. So we followed him and fed the raccoon cookies. It walked up to me and took the cookies out of my hands with his paws. It was also the first time i saw a raccoon. I'm fully against feeding wild animals now btw. I trolled gophers by making them think that leaf I'm holding is a chip, so the learn that humans only give disappointment.

My grandparents own a snow cone stand. One day, while I was up there with them, one of their regular conditioners came through and ordered a blue raspberry snow cone. We give it to the lady, she takes it, and as soon as she does, a squirrel comes in and starts sucking it down. I mean, so fast it started freaking out because of a brain freeze.
Anyway, now the lady owns a squirrel. Named her chippy. And they come once a week to get a blue raspberry snow cone. Very tame and friendly thing the squirrel is.

I am a Londoner and moved up to Yorkshire at 18 for uni. My friends take the piss saying the only green I ever saw was the patch of grass between the kerb and pathway outside my mums house.

Anyway, an ex girlfriend and myself were out driving one day, on our way back from somewhere about 4pm the time of year where it starts to get dark that time of day. She drove a green Renault Clio we called Trev.

We were driving on the back country roads and look to out right to see a barn owl mid flight, cruising along no higher then the hedgerows. The bloody thing takes a sudden swoop to the left a collides with the side of the car, we swerve and let out girly screams which I think startled it more than the impact with the car. Then it glides right, gains height and sods off. No one believes that happened.

I was surprised at what a thump it caused as it hit the car.

TL;DR: A barn owl collided with our car causing us to swerve and scream and the family not to believe us.

I was doing my neighborhood watch route and spotted a suspicious animal meandering throughout the neighborhood without any clear goal. Concerned, I got out of my car to see if it had rabies. After getting on the phone with ASPCA and being told that my services were not needed, I went to look for an address to give to them as to where the animal was last spotted.

Suddenly the animal came out of nowhere and visciously attacked me. Fortunately, I was concealed carry and shot it as it wounded me, preventing me from sustaining serious injuries. The ASPCA came, noticed it was not an animal abuse situation, and let me go.

Unfortunately, a little over a month later PETA got wind of my situation and called for my blood, and I was arrested despite being found in sound mind by the ASPCA.

A grueling year later and the court proceedings happened. Animal rights activists protested outside the courthouse calling for my death. I lived in fear every day, only hoping the jury was reasonable enough to realize I was simply defending myself.

The verdict was about to come and my head was spinning and heart pounding. I didn't want to be known as an animal-killer, some sociopathic sicko who derived pleasure from sadistic torment. I simply wanted to live a normal life again, however normal it may be from PETA's harassment. When the verdict came I felt depersonalized, my light-headedness so extreme it was as if I was floating. Not guilty. The year of hell was slowly beginning to end and my life was free.

But it wasn't so. Wild animals all across the country began attacking normal folk, like you and I, in some angry protest over the animal that attacked me. And the worst part? PETA was defending them every step of the way.

There was a bird on the road. I approach it carefully, slowly. I get like 3 feet away and I'm like wtf? It's not going to move? I pick it up and put it in a tree. It was the coolest fucking thing ever, I just held it there for a few minutes and we looked at each other. I realized I had made a new friend. Then it took off and shit on me... And then I realized.... FUCK BIRDS IN THEIR LITTLE BIRD ASSES!!!!

Perfect place for a, story that happened today. My family and I are in the Florida Keys for a scuba diving vacation. Today was actually our last day. I had bought a pole spear to do some spearfishing this week and hadn't seen anything to shoot, nonetheless I took it with me on my final 2 dives of the trip. I didn't expect to shoot anything so I left the stringer on the boat. About 15 min into the dive a nice hogfish shows up and I bag him, not having the stringer, I just left him on the end of my spear. So we continue swimming with my dad and sister on my left, not 5 minutes later something slams into my right leg. I turn to see a 5' nurse shark swimming right at me, I push it back with my hand and grab my dad's attention. We spend the next 5 min trying to get the shark away from my first spearfishing prize. We hit the sharks nose about 10 times and it just circled back trying to eat my fish, finally my dad grabs the things tail and pulls it to the side and it swims off. I go topside and swim 50 yds to the boat to bring my fish to safety. Easily my most memorable dive!

Snorkelling with a mate at a reef close to where I live and we came across a decent sized stingray.
Followed us for about 20 mins as we explored the reef.
Thought this is the coolest thing ever until it cracked the shits and started getting real close so I gtfo there pretty quick, don't wanna do a replay of Steve Irwin today, nuh uh.

Whytecliff park in North Vancovuer, BC is where they release the vancouver aquarium releases some of the rescue seals. Some of them are friendly and they will hunt by your dive lights at night. Poke around the cracks for sleeping fish and they will follow your light beam. Spend some time finding them dinner and you might get to give them a belly rub when they are done.

I had a field project once where I set pit traps to capture and record small marsupials. I had to check every trap, release and cover every trap before daylight. In pitch black I was climbing a mountain, not thinking dumbly putting one foot i front of the other and broke into a clearing. There was dingo mum and pups. I scrambled through my pack in a daze thinking,
'Wow! Where's my camera!' twenty seconds after that, 'Fuck, where's a stick!' She stared at me, then just trotted off back into the bush. I stared a bit and stumbled on my way.

I also had a passive activity index- bit of sand dusted with flour- for recording tracks. Saw their tracks a few times, but never them.

Swimming with sharks; I was swimming with a friend a few hundred feet away from the beach when we saw an 8 foot long thing swim past us. At the time I wasn't scared, I was terrified the next day after I crashed wakeboarding close to where I saw the shark and was waiting for the boat to come back for me and that black fin pop out of the water 5 feet away. I couldn't swim my feet were strapped to a board, then I saw the second fin and the spout of water and realized it was a pod of dolphins.

Recently, on my walk to work, I saw a squirrel trying to hide from me behind a fence. His tail was sticking right all the way up over the fence, so I snuck up behind him and swatted his tail and jumped and scurried away. I was really excited that after years of being pranked by these greedy, beady eyed, fat cheeked bastards I finally got the drop on of them.

I once found a turtle digging in my friend's driveway at their beach house. I thought it was strange at first until I realized she was digging a hole to lay her eggs in. So I grabbed the turtle and my friend and I sprinted down to the beach where it dug a new hole, laid its eggs and swam away. (It's amazing how many eggs fit in that turtle.) I have no idea how this thing made it so far inland.

We called a wildlife center later because the turtles are endangered (can't remember the species) and they had us dig up the eggs and someone came to collect them so they could rebury them somewhere less crowded.

I was walking in the woods down the road from my house and about half a mile in there was this lake I walked up to the edge of and looked through the tall weeds and noticed an alligator a few feet away. Instead of backing up I just watched him calmly drift by.

Suddenly he submerged and shot through the water and popped out a few feet away fighting with another alligator. They made the loudest noise I've ever heard from a wild animal just splashing and beating the crap out of each other for a minute.

Eventually they gave each other the cold shoulder and I got bored and went to pick some black berries.

Me and my buddy were walking to the store to get beer. We get the beer then go over to some bushes to put the beer in our backpacks so we're not walking through our upper middle class neighborhood with a 24 pack of beer. I wasn't wearing my glasses at the time and he's about as blind as me but won't wear glasses cause he thinks he'll look like a loser or something. As we're putting the beer in the backpacks we hear a rattle. Don't really notice it at first cause woo! Beer. Shortly we realize what's going on and there's a big ass rattlesnake chilling out about six feet from us. We freak out and gtfo.

I was 17 and sitting on the asphalt at the head of a driveway (ex boyfriend's parent's suburban house). It was dark outside, I was smoking leisurely. I saw an animal approach from within the bushes by the house and thought it was a black and white cat (it was pitch black by the bushes and cats from the neighborhood are seen hanging out outside sometimes).

The cat approached and I leaned over to pet it, saying "here kitty". 'Kitty' emerged from the darkness and it was a SKUNK. It turned around and began to lift it's tail...and I've never ran down a driveway so fast in my life.

I was spike elk hunting last year, and my hunting parter and I were way up this ridge in the wilderness area. We had seen some tracks, but not much else when dusk hits. We were going to walk back to the truck in the dark when we hear a noise on the steep downhill side of the ridge. A minute or so later a herd of about 200 or so elk start walking right where we are coming over the ridge, some walking within yards of us. One big cow elk stops just a few yards from us, makes her mewing sound, and sticks her tongue out at us, kind of scenting the air. We were holding still the entire time, but the whole herd got past us before we adjusted our stance and broke a twig or something, sending the whole herd crashing away. No spikes in that group though, just cows and calves.

Here in Australia, contrary to international belief, Kangaroos are a freakin' nightmare. I like driving up the winding roads in the country on a nice day and these little bastards just go berserk hopping and jumping all over the place you literally have to swerve to avoid them. They also seem to be fascinated with humans taking dumps in the bush. Weird.

I was walking to class one day. I got that feeling that someone was looking at me. I look up, and there's a possum in the tree, staring at me with its mouth open. I quickened my pace.

Also, I use to keep a bag of peanuts in my purse for the squirrels at my school. Unbeknownst to me, the bag had ruptured, leaking peanuts throughout the compartment in which they were kept. One day, there was this super friendly squirrel on campus. I reached into my purse, and threw the now readily available peanuts at it. It was happy.

Looking back, I must have looked really strange to other students for having peanuts that readily available.

I was at an outdoor party that my neighborhood was hosting. I was standing, eating popcorn and chatting to my mom when I felt a strange sensation on my ankle. I looked down and I saw a squirrel climbing up my leg...as if I were a tree. When the little guy and I made eye contact, I let out an ever so girly scream and it dashed off. I can still feel its little claws grasping my leg.

fun fact: Later that year I was greeting the typical trick or treaters on Halloween when one of the moms said "hey you're the squirrel girl".

Not necessarily a wild animal, but I was staying at my aunt's house for the summer and her neighbors had a timber wolf they had rescued as a puppy when his mother abandoned him in the wild with a broken leg. When I first met him I was completely enraptured. I got down on my knees and was petting him and just couldn't take my eyes off him. I don't think I could have been anymore thrilled if I had met my favorite movie star. They had a toddler who would run up to him and put his arms around his neck and the wolf would nuzzle him and put his head underneath him and pull the child up onto his back. Maybe I don't get out much but this is one of the most awesome experiences I've ever had. I am still honored to this day to have been able to pet and interact with such a magnificent creature.

I've had several: the 10-foot black snake, with a body big around as a beer can, that I thought was sleeping on the trial I wanted to bike down, so I figured I'd wake him up and he'd slither sluggishly away? He wasn't sleeping.

I was fishing in a boat with some friends. The boat was a tinny, about 10 feet long when we were circled by a great white that was atleast 4m long. It even followed us back a fair way after we decided to call it a day. You never realise how big they are until you see them in the wild.

At the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, the squirrels have become so accustomed to being fed french fries and bits of burgers that they now just hop right on top of the tables and try to take the food themselves. Squirrels (especially well-fed ones) are really hard to shoo away.

Camped in the middle of a natural choke point, had a couple deer run through my campsite (as in, they ran between me and my friend).

Was biking with another friend and came across a black bear around a blind corner. With how close the bear was, and the fact that we were on bikes, we just sped up and moved to the other side of the road from the bear.

Stupidly, I went swimming once with a necklace on (just a simple metal chain with a silver disk on the end), and I saw a barracuda swimming by. Felt it would be best to remove the chain from my neck (which, in hindsight, may have just drawn attention to the shiny thing) and the barracuda decided to grab at it.

We were drinking (heavily) in a park on Okanogan lake in Kelowna, BC on a warm summer night. What do we see munching on a tree in the middle of a park on a big lake, where it had no business being? A rather large beaver, say 22Kg (45lbs).

We walked up to the beaver and yelled at it to stop eating the tree in the middle of the well groomed park. The cheeky bastard ignored us, so I slapped it on the ass as hard as I could. Turns out beavers are pretty quick, he took a swat at me with his tail, and then we chased it across the park and into the lake.

My other fun wildlife encounter was racing an enduro event up near that same lake. Basically, it's single track off road, tight and nasty trails, and you try and match your time around two 30km loops in the bush. I came around the corner in some thick woods and all of a sudden a full grown female (cow) moose bolts onto the race course and runs down the trail 2 meters in front of me. Well, this is my second loop and I am trying to make time, so what do you do but keep chasing this moose down the trail. Grin :) After a minute, it finally wises up and just crashes through some bushes, making it's own trail. We went our separate ways.

That's not quite as spectacular as scaring the piss out of a bull Moose with a full rack. They are wearing a 4x8 sheet of plywood, and when they go flying through the woods, they make their own road. 3" trees are tossed like toothpicks. But that I have only seen from 75M away. Even from that distance, it's a much louder event than you would think was possible from an animal.

One time out in the woods, me and my family found two baby raccoons thats mother had been killed by a car and were so young they would've died if we didn't help them. So, we took them in for they summer and they actually got very attached to us. Eventually though one of them did run back to the wild leaving the other smaller, stupider one by itself, which was good for that raccoon, but not for the small one that didn't leave. He legitimately got depressed and would sit on our porch sucking his dick all day (he was flexible). Then one day he completely vanished and for a month we didn't see him. We thought he was gone for good but then out of the blue him AND the other raccoon turned up out of nowhere and started scratching at our door. They live out in the forest now, but I still see them from time to time and I'm sure they remember me!

When I was 8 I slept round my grandparents house woke up looked out the window into the garden and there it is a bloody bright pink flamingo just standing in the garden on one leg. I went downstairs unlocked the back door and slowly walked up to it I was about 3m away from it and just stared at it for about 5 minutes until my nan came down and took me back inside. I Haven't seen a flamingo since.

went camping with my cousins, it was early morning, everyone was asleep, but i got up and sat in a lawn chair near the fire pit, had a handful of crackers from my the food my cousin brought along, and this squirrel walked up, scrambled up onto the chair beside me, i handed it a cracker, he took it and just sat there munching away on his cracker while i munched away on mine, when he was done he turned back to me, gave him another one, he did the same thing and we kept on like that until my cousins got up and he scurried away. Pretty awesome, i can say i had breakfast with a squirrel.

I went duck hunting in Alaska with my dad one year. While I was out on a little skiff in the ocean, a whale surfaced for a bit not twenty yards away from me. Coolest encounter with a wild animal in my life.

So I live in a pretty suburban area, but about half a mile away from my house is a pond/lake that has a walking trail, large section of woods, and stuff like that. Well since we live so close it, we get a lot of wild life in our neighborhood. Our neighbor, we'll call her crazybitch, is a crazy bitch. She is a hoarder and has so much shit laying in her garage area, mostly trash. She also tends to let her three MOTHERFUCKING DOGS roam free all over the neighborhood. They aren't nice either, you make eye contact with any of them any you have a Fucking stampede of three dogs after you. Anyways, crazybitch always has, and will, leave her trashcans uncovered. Every. Fucking. Night. And every morning some racoons from the pond around the corner come trotting up to her trash cans and tear the shit out of them. I mean, there is trash all over her yard and ours. We've contacted the city so many times about her, but crazy bitch never changes... One night, my stepdad and I decide to stay up for the racoons maybe try to scare them away or trap them, But he doesn't want any cars in the driveway. So I start to pull my car around to the front of the house. I park my car, get out, and look over into crazybitch's yard. I see a cat sitting in her yard. Most of the cats in the neighborhood are very skiddish and mean, and run away if you try to get close. Well, I started calling the cat for fun, knowing it will probably run away. But it didn't move. This really caught my attention now, so I decided it would be a good idea to go check out the cat. I start walking over to the yard and its not moving. I get closer and closer and when I am one foot away, the cat, or what I thought was a cat, turned around. It was a Fucking coon. It was holding a wrapper of some sort, probably from crazybitch's house. The look on its face was one of what I thought was fear. I paused with my jaw on the ground. I have never seen a raccoon before let alone one one foot from me. So I start backing away. But as I move, the racoon starts to move also. It puts the wrapper in its mouth and starts walking to the tree about ten feet away. And It won't break eye contact with me. Its almost like it was mentally saying, I won't tell if you don't. It slowly climbed the tree, still looking at me, until I couldn't see it anymore. After that I went inside and went to bed. I don't really like raccoons anymore.

When I was younger (4-7 years old) my family lived on a sailboat. We were in Georgetown, on Great Exuma in the Bahamas. There was a dolphin that would come into the harbor sometimes and swim around. All the kids would jump in the water and try to swim with the dolphin and just go nits because they would see it underwater, and it's pretty cool to see one of those drum under the surface. One day, it came into the harbor and my sister and I jump in and swim around, banging together scuba weights to try and make a sound to attract the animal.
It worked and the beautiful creature started playing with my sister and I while all the other kids splashed around a few hundred yards away. It let us grab onto the dorsal fin and ride it around, making sure both my sister and I got a ride before jumping right above us as soon as we let go. It stayed around us for a good fifteen minutes before it was distracted by a school of fish and swam off. I dream about that sometimes, I don't think I'll ever forget it.

My encounter was when I was on vacation with my family, I was 14/15 at the time. We were just getting to leave out hotel, my dad and I were waiting outside in the car for my mom who was still in the hotel. During this time I can hear a seagull squawking non stop, as if in distress. My dad and I went to check it out, the seagull that was squawking was on top of a light post. We saw another seagull trapped in a Boston Pizza patio(the roof had wood bars so there was room to fit in, but the seagull couldn't figure out how to get out). As we neared the trapped seagull, the one on the post swooped down on us, to intimidate us. We eventually got someone's attention and they let the seagull out. As soon as the seagull got out, it's friend started to fly around with it, and then dozens of other seagulls came from rooftops nearby(I hadn't noticed them before, but they were clearly watching the trapped seagull). They all started flying in a circle, and it looked like a tornado of seagulls. My dad and I then went back to the car, as we did this, a seagull flew away from the bunch, and then landed on the rooftop of the hotel in a spot close to us, looked at us for a few seconds, and then flew off to its group.

I was leaving a party once and approaching the street corner. As I get close, something comes shambling around. It was a big raccoon. I really didn't want to have to fight a raccoon that night, so I just stared him down. He stared back, and then abruptly slunk into a nearby curb drain.

I was visiting my uncle who lives near a reserve area for Bald Eagles. I'm a Canadian, so i've never seen one before in my life. Canoeing in a pond and doing some fishing, noticed an eagle flying around over head. I'm thinking awesome, a real life bald eagle, and forget about it. Next thing I know, i've got a bit of a fish on, great, day can't get any better. I start reeling in and the fish gets near the surface, out of nowhere, the eagle swoops down and grabs on to my catch. At this point it's still hooked, and i've got a bird trying to fly away with it. For a few seconds, i'm sitting there playing tug of war with a Bald Eagle for this fish. In the end, somehow the hook popped out, and off went my catch.

Walking back from the pub on an old unused railway line I saw four glowing eyes in the distance, turned out to be two fox cubs. Cute as buttons they were. They played like little dogs when I got closer, even splashed me with a puddle and had the cheekiest faces. Yes I was drunk.

I was backpacking in Australia and was camping on Fraser Island. I was walking to the parking area from the beach and I noticed a dingo trailing me, but hanging back a ways.

I stopped and got down on my knees and it came up to me. (I was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.) I had just eaten a salami sandwich on the beach so when it sniffed my fingers, (I was holding a camera up,) it licked them. The look on its face was like: "OMG... If the rest of him tastes like this: JACKPOT!"

So it circled behind me and it sniffed at my back about where the kidney is. And then very gently, using just its front teeth, kind of nibbled at that spot. And then it was like: "Shit. I knew it was too good to be true." And he went trotting off with a look of total dejection on its face.

tl;dr: Dingo nibbled on my back, left disappointed that he had not scored the free meal of a lifetime.

My brother and I were outside playing when we saw a deer and its two fawns when we decided it would be a good idea to try and pet them. As we approached they jumped the fence, exept one of the fawns who couldn't jump over o it was traped between the fence and us. When we were about 10ft away a neighbor ran up and tolled us not to touch it, then he picked it up and put it on the other side of the fence. I just wanted to pet a deer.

First date with my now wife, went hiking and on the trail after a small bend not 40 feet away a mother black bear and 2 cubs come strolling across the trail. (late spring)

The mother stopped and looked at us, I grabbed the at time GF and told her not to move (was worried she would scream and run). Cubs played/wrestled with each other on the trail for about 15 seconds while mom looked at us then kept going. After about 2 minutes we resumed the hike and finished it just before it started.

Was out hiking in the Appalachian Mts, and suddenly a good sized black bear walked out onto the path about 50 yards in front of me. It saw me and we both froze. It was one of those tense standoff moments in a movie where we were both staring each other down. After a few seconds, the bear cocked its head at me, snorted, shook its head in an almost approving way, then continued walking off the path. It took me probably 5 minutes to make my heart stop pounding, and my dad still doesn't believe it ever happened.

I lived in the city most of my life so when I moved to Ruidoso New Mexico I enjoyed all the wild life around. One night I heard a bear messing with the trash out side so I go a flashlight and watched it from my porch for a while. It then started walking away and went down this little drop off so I couldn't see it. Because I am a dumb person I followed it to the drop only to realize the drop was maybe 5 or 6 feet down and I ended up staring at the bear in the face.

I was like a dear caught in the headlights and didn't move an inch as it sniffed around me before just turning around and walking away. That was the scariest moment in my life but was really cool too.

My great aunt and uncle live wayyy out in the sticks in Idaho. about an hour and a half from a real town. As a kid, my sister and I would go out there for a week every summer. My great aunt was one of the most gentle people I know, there were a couple families of deer that would eat straight out of her hand and let her pet them. She even recognized them and named them and watched them grow up. It was really cool not only to see her do that but occasionally get to pet and feed them as well.

During a safari, we saw an elephant. It was alone, and eating some trees, leaves, bushes for breakfast. Then all of a sudden, it turns to us. After a few moments of eye contact it just starts sprinting towards the jeep. The tour guide is like "WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK" and manages to turn the jeep around before the elephant manages to get near us. All while my father is filming this.

We had this dog called Omar when I was growing up. He used to chew the shit out of everything. Furniture, shoes, any unlucky toy you left laying around. We bought him chew toys, but they never lasted long. One day we gave him this stuffed bunny, and he fell in love. Carried it everywhere and never put a single solitary tooth hole in it. One day as we're leaving for school, something catches my eyes so I turn around and look out the back window of the car. There at the bottom of the driveway is Omar's bunny being positively demolished by a bald eagle. We stopped the car and watched until the eagle decided that it wasn't worth eating and took off. Bunny could not be reassembled.

Multiple confrontations with bears. I've had one charge me a few times before leaving the area rather than bother with me.

Had a moose charge me near west Anchorage, I got into the bed of a nearby pickup and stayed there about 20 minutes until I knew the coast was clear.

In February two dolphins followed our fishing guide's 19 foot boat for about an hour. They were so close to the bow, you could touch them if laid on your stomach and reached out over the bow. That was amazing.

I'm from joshua tree where rattle snakes are pretty abundant. One day I was hiking with my blow dart gun and came up to a rosy boa eating a rattlesnake. I just took a step back and was just admiring what I was seeing until the rosy boa decides not to eat the rattlesnake. It spit it up and after a minute I realized the rattlesnake was still alive. This wasn't far from my house so I killed it.

I was playing basketball when I found a bat grasping for aid on the ground. I think it couldn't see well and it was starting to suffocate. I picked fit up and took it outside, it was so cute. Im not just saying that, it is kitten level cute.

Interesting? Ok...We'll call it interesting. When I was about 15 I was walking through a large wooded area and came upon a very young deer. The moment it saw me it ran. Being 15 and bored, I started chasing the deer, mostly just to see if it was possible to catch up to it. I had only chased it for about 10 seconds when we came to a clearing. The deer, for some reason, ran straight into a large tree. It tumbled backwards and when it got up, its head was just flopped over sideways. Upside down. It appeared it broke its neck. I was so shocked I just stood there. It was disoriented (duh) and walked right past me. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move. I just watched it walk away. I was mostly amazed that it was still able to walk in that condition. I still get chills thinking about it.

I had a pet bat for a while. My parent's house has a pool in the backyard, and I was always fond of going out around sunset to float around and smoke a joint. This bat would always come at almost exactly 9:00 and fly around overhead, occasionally diving down at the water. It was always just one bat (I knew where the colony was) that would come alone, and it came every night for about a month. Naturally, I called him Dracula.

One time I was standing by a tree, and a mother squirrel and her juvenile litter of baby squirrels were a few feet away. Suddenly one of the babies comes over, jumps on my foot, scales my legs, runs up my shirt to my shoulder, jumps on my head and over to the tree I was standing next to! I'm not one to anthropomorphize, but the look on the mother squirrel's face was priceless, I thought, that baby squirrel is gonna get his ears boxed tonight.

Snorkeling at the beach looking at beautiful coral. I got a chilling sensation and scanned to my left. I saw a 4-5 foot barracuda swimming by about 10 feet away from me. I think she was checking me out.

I live in a city of about 80,000 people. I was walking home from college/downtown one day and cut through this little pathway between houses and a bear was just hanging out. By the time I noticed it, it was only a few feet away (almost within arms reach!), so I kept going since it was too late anyways. The second I got out of the pathway I booked it across a main highway, hoping the traffic would give us some distance, but nope! Mother fucking bear had to follow me! He ended up following me most of the way home, but eventually took off.

tl;dr: A bear wanted to be my friend and followed closely behind on my walk home from college

I was scuba diving and snorkeling for a summer in Key Largo in Florida a few years back. Scuba costs more, but I saw most cool things while snorkeling somehow.

This one instance we boated out to a reef a few miles off shore where we docked and my brother and I went snorkeling. My brother just ate, and was lagging behind. Me, being an asshole just told him to go back if he can't keep up and I just kept paddling farther out. As a rule of thumb you never scuba/snorkel alone, but we didn't have too many days left on the trip and I wasn't going to let the Arbies that my brother had for lunch ruin the fun!

So I'm paddling alone when I came to a shift in the shelves (not sure if that's what it's called) basically, it was where the reefs and corals ended, and it was nothing but sands and a blue abyss - think Finding Nemo, where Marlin decides to live the first time.

So I came to a stop, marveling into the endless nothingness, thinking whether I should go back or see if anything's out there. When suddenly, a huge ass blue stingray "flies" right over me. I say fly, because if you every see one move, they glide through the waters while flapping their huge wings. This one was larger than I was, 6-7ft wing span at least.

It was like the time had gone slow mode, as I watched in awe and fear as this magnificent creature glided over me, and creating a shadow. This was not too long after the Steve Erwin incident, and I was wondering if I should run away, but mostly I was just paralyzed.

And our eyes met. It was staring right into my eyes as it passed over me. This could just be me, but it kinda looked like it was scared too.

I just kinda stayed there paddling and looking long after the stingray disappeared into the depths. When I finally realized what had happened, I frantically swam back to the boat to call my brother an idiot for eating before we sailed out and brag in front of him for missing a once in a life time experience.

Created an account just to tell this story. I was javelina hunting with my brother, and we got separated on a ridge. I hear him on the walkie-talkie saying that he can see a couple of pigs about 100 yards from him. Next thing I know, I hear screaming. By the time I get to him, no pigs in sight and my brother is laying on the ground. It turns out that one of the javelina charged him when it saw him. It gored right at his ankle and actually ripped his pants all the way up to the crotch. The only thing that saved his ankle was his cowboy boot--it couldn't get through the leather. I guess he scared it off by hitting on the head with his gun; he didn't even have time to think about shooting it. It makes for a pretty funny story in the aftermath.

Me and my dad went to visit my uncle on his boat in Ventura, I was about 11 or 12, and my uncle let me cruise around the harbor in the dinghy, which was awesome, I wasn't going more than 5 or 10 mph in the harbor, but I just remember like 10 otters swimming next to me giving me the "What's up bro?" look as they swam like dolphins next to me, granted this dinghy is not far from the surface of the water, but when I stopped, they all swam up to me, I didn't touch them, but they looked at me with curiosity, it was awesome.

I was out kayaking in a part of Armand Bayou I'd never been to before when I came upon about a dozen Osprey nesting in a forest of dead, half-submerged trees. I'd never seen living Osprey before and only knew them from an illustration I'd seen in an old field guide. I mistakenly thought they were small birds, about the size of seagulls. I decided to take a closer look and paddled over to the trees. I realized far too late that Osprey are almost as big as Bald Eagles and that I was way too close to their nests. Two of the Osprey decided to show me the error of my ways and dive-bombed me. They missed and I promptly paddled away from them as fast as I could. They came after me again two more times and punched me in the back of the head each time before breaking it off and returning to their nests. They scared the crap out of me, but aside from a few lumps, I got away without injury.

This post prompted me to make an account and post. I had an encounter with a deer but not like anything else that has been posted that I read. I was with a group of friends camping in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota in January. At that time of the year all the lakes are frozen over and it's cold. Like -30 to -40 at night before windchill. Anyway, we are snowshoeing back to our base camp after a day's worth of exploring and step out onto a lake. (They are faster to travel on with no trees or elevation change.) It's a 2 mile oblong lake and we are about a mile in when we see a deer bound from the woods. It is coming up from behind and easily passes us in a few minutes. It disappears into a small bay and we think it's gone. Not 30 seconds later it comes back out sprinting faster than ever. We are all thinking "what the heck?" When we see it. A Timberwolf, I think, comes out of the darkness of the forest and is screaming down on this deer. He chases her back to the other end of the lake where she succumbs to fatigue and he takes her down in one fell swoop.

We were all speechless at this and I would have done anything to have a good camera and lens that day. A true National Geographic or Planet Earth moment.